Victor Stone had resigned himself to the fact that he was completely alone in the world. He had comrades, but they were completely organic. He had people he'd consider calling 'friend', but they were organic as well. They had secret identities. They...
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Harper twitched as she struggled to acquaint herself with the strange 'feelings' of her new neural implant. Her Model Val chassis stood motionless in the hangar space before her, having just been fitted with a receiver upgrade that made it compatible with the new implant.
Victor had designed and fabricated the new neural implant based on several of Harper's rough designs; the main key feature is that Harper could send any machine a single wide command just once, and the implant would cycle the signal indefinitely, meaning that she didn't have to focus on controlling it.
For example, take what Harper was currently doing with the Model Val. Harper had stopped directly controlling it, but issued a single order to it minutes ago. Harper lifted the baseball that sat in her lap and pegged it swiftly across the bay, away from where the Val was standing.
Without any additional interference from Harper, the Model Val dove over to the ball, scooped it out of the air, and landed with great finesse. The weight of the thing created decent reverberations through the flooring, causing Harper to hold on tightly to her wheelchair.
The Val redistributed it's footing in order to stand up straight, then gently tossed the ball back to Harper. It landed in her lap, garnering a weak smile from the woman.
"How does it feel?" Victor asked anxiously. He knew that the implant was far more advanced than her old one, but that didn't mean that she would find it easier to use.
"It's good. It'll take a bit of getting used to, but it's definitely more efficient than my old one." Harper threw the ball back into the corner of the room. It bounced four times, then rolled to a stop beside Val's boot. "And you said I can hack into stuff with this thing, right? Without any contact with a terminal or computer?"
"Well...yeah, but I'd prefer if you only used that in dire circumstances. Depending on the security strength, the neural load might be a bit too much for the human brain to handle." Victor replied with a slightly anxious tone. Harper could almost hear a lecture being formed in the cyborg's mind, but before Victor had the chance to actually vocalise it, an alarm pierced through the entire Watchtower.
It was loud. Far too loud for Harper's newly sensitive ears. She was still recovering from surgery, and every noise that rose even slightly above average would awaken a head-splitting migraine.
Harper took a sharp inhale that whistled between her front teeth, and cupped her hands on either side of her head as if it would help numb the pain. "What the hell is that about?"
"Incoming projectile...! Point defences can't touch it...it's shielded... Brace for impact." Victor said, urgently approaching Harper and securing her in his arms.
The pair waited for an explosion to answer...but instead, all they got was this voice through the Watchtower's speakers, "Superman to Watchtower; good news, you don't have to worry about that missile anymore."
